The State Elections Enforcement Commission on Tuesday sent federal election regulators a strongly worded denunciation of the state Democratic Party's plan to pay for part of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's re-election effort with money raised for federal congressional campaigns — saying that it would "circumvent and violate" state clean-election laws.

The state Democratic Party asked the Federal Election Commission on Oct. 1 for a legal opinion to support its contention that it's OK under federal law to spend an undisclosed amount of money from its "federal account" to pay for a proposed mass mailing that says, "On November 4th, vote for Dan Malloy." Democrats have collected $3.8 million in that account, much of it from executives of firms that have contracts with the state, who are banned under state law from contributing to state campaigns.

But the state commission said in its 10-page letter Tuesday that the Democrats' proposed mailing would undermine state clean-election laws passed after the 2004 corruption scandal surrounding then-Gov. John G. Rowland.

The commission "strongly objects to the request by the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee ... to allow the state party to circumvent and violate Connecticut state laws that were enacted for the benefit of all of the state's citizens," the letter said.

Chief among those clean-election laws was a ban on state contractors' money in state election campaigns, which was supposed to keep special-interest money out of state elections.

That ban on contractors' money was approved by the legislature along with a public financing system under which taxpayers pay for grants to fund state candidates' campaigns. Having taxpayers fund the campaigns' expenses was considered better than candidates indebting themselves to big-money contributors — including state contractors — who have special interests in government decisions.

Critics of the current Democratic plan say that if the FEC approves the proposed Malloy mailing, the original promise of the public financing system will be broken. That's because they say that the special-interest money would now flow into the state campaign through the party's "federal account" — even as taxpayers continue to pay for campaigns that were supposed to be kept "clean" of contractors' money. The public financing bill to taxpayers for the 2010 state election was $27 million.

Last week, state Republican legislators blasted the proposed Malloy mailing, saying that the same Democrats who had championed the clean-election laws now want to undermine them because they're worried that Malloy might lose the election.

State Democratic Party spokesman Devon Puglia issued a statement Tuesday defending the party's position: "This is fundamentally a challenge of conflicting guidance — federal law says one thing, state law says another. That's why we're seeking clarification. The FEC requires — requires — dollars for these mailers to be used out of our federal account, while SEEC has stated a contrary position. We follow all rules, laws, and regulations, so any suggestion or insinuation to the contrary is entirely without merit."

Too Much, Too Little

One of the SEEC's main arguments in its Tuesday letter was that the proposed pro-Malloy mailing is 99.6 percent devoted to photos and words supporting Malloy's re-election, while less than half of 1 percent of it contains a tiny printed message about how voters may get to the polls on Nov. 4.

Federal law allows leeway for money from a party's "federal account" — which is regulated by the FEC and intended to promote election of federal candidates for Congress — to be spent on "federal election activity" such as "get-out-the-vote" activities on behalf of congressional candidates that also could benefit a candidate for state office. The logic is that getting a voter to the polls in New Haven for U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, also gets the voter to the polls for Malloy.

But the SEEC argued that the get-out-the-vote message on the proposed mailer — taking up only 0.4 percent of its surface area — is "incidental" to the vote-for-Malloy message, and is not enough to justify spending money from the party's "federal account."

Here are excerpts from the SEEC's letter to the FEC:

•"[W]e respectfully request that the [Federal Election] Commission does not allow the state party to cynically circumvent our state's carefully tailored pay-to-play state contractor provisions by glibly including a stray get-out-the-vote message in a communication that … promotes a Connecticut candidate, and then contending that the inclusion of a minute phone number and the polling hours transforms the communication into federal election activity outside the jurisdiction of the SEEC."

•"If the [FEC] does decide to consider the state party's request for a preemption determination, it should find that the SEEC is not precluded from enforcing its pay-to-play laws with respect to the Malloy mailer and others like it. To do otherwise would be to eviscerate Connecticut's campaign finance law."

Puglia also said in his statement that "Tom Foley is the only person in this race who has paid a fine for violating the law." Foley says he paid no fine, but made a payment of $16,000 under a settlement agreement with the SEEC to end its probe of how he funded a poll. Puglia continued: "While we're working to follow the rules and seeking clarity on conflicting federal and state guidelines, Tom Foley has several investigations and complaints pending."